


Family Ties

by ICanFlyHigher



Category: Mumintroll | Moomins Series - Tove Jansson
Genre: Family Bonding, Family Reunions, Gen, Joxter isn't sure how to be a dad but he's trying, Trans Snusmumriken | Snufkin, Underage Smoking, father-son bonding, snufkin has a sensory processing disorder, snufkin might not like kids but he's good with them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 12:53:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18965638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ICanFlyHigher/pseuds/ICanFlyHigher
Summary: “Don’t be sour," the Mymble's daughter says, "no one like reunions, that’s the point. It’s not family if you enjoy yourself."the mymble family reunion is here-- the worst day of the year, in Snufkin's humble opinion





	Family Ties

**Author's Note:**

> this is so unbelievably self-indulgent but take it anyways. i included a few moominsonas and ocs of people i know, like Little Might who was created by gem-under-the-mountain and afamoore on tumblr. Snufkin's sensory processing disorder was based off my own so i'm unsure how close it is to other people with a sensory processing disorder. hope you enjoy!

Snufkin is an early riser—he takes a great joy in sitting by a fire with a cup of coffee in hand while watching the sun rise or whistling along with the morning songbirds, working on his imitations of sparrows and blue jays and wood pigeons. But this morning he doesn’t have the chance to crawl out from under his blankets, stretch, and put a pot of coffee before someone is screaming at him.

“Snufkin!” The Mymble’s daughter’s voice cuts shrilly through the sweet morning air. Snufkin groans and rolls over, burying his face in his pillow. “Get up Snufkin, I know you’re in there.”

“No I’m not.” He mumbles, and he can hear the Mymble’s daughter snort. With a sigh he throws off his blanket and fumbles around for his undershirt. There are few people in the world Snufkin has let see him without it on, mainly Moomin and Little My and Moominmamma. Mymble, half-sister or no, was not one of them.

“What?” He says, sticking his head out of the tent flap. Mymble looks unusually nice, red boots shined and purple dress scrubbed clean of any stains.

“We’re leaving soon, get dressed. I’m going to go wrestle My into something presentable—please have something nice on by time I get back.”

Snufkin blinks. It takes a few moments in his sleep thick brain to put the pieces together: drowsy Mymble up so early, Little My forced into something clean…

“Nope,” he says, pulling back into his tent. “Not going.”

“Don’t make me drag you out of there.” She pushes past the tent flap and Snufkin hisses at her, something awfully childish for a snufkin his age, but family reunions seem to bring the worst out of everyone. Mymble could tug on him all she wanted; he was not going.

Fifteen minutes later Mymble has flattened his hair into something vaguely neat, combed out his tail, and forced a clean shirt over his head.

She picks at a soot stain close to the hem of his shirt and sighs.

“It’ll have to do.” She says. Snufkin bats her hand away. “Don’t be sour—no one like reunions, that’s the point. It’s not family if you enjoy yourself. Stand up straight and stop scowling.”

Snufkin pops his head back in his tent for his hat, ignoring Mymble’s whines that she had _‘just fixed his hair’,_ but at least she doesn’t move to stop him when he shoves it on his head.

When they reach Moomin House to fetch Little My, all scrubbed down and primed by an exhausted looking Moominmamma, the sun is up—his missed the sunrise all over a stupid clean shirt. Moominmamma still offers lemonade and honey cakes for their travels, bless her, even with bath water down her apron.  Snufkin keeps his eyes fixed on the top of the stairwell throughout all of Mymble and Mamma’s small talk in hopes that a fluffy white friend might wander down and save him from his misery. Little My digs her claws into his pant leg and scampers up onto his shoulder. She snickers in his ear, tugging on his hair when she notices his staring. Snufkin swats her off him. They both pretend not to notice the sharp look Mymble gives them.

\---

The Mymble House is in worse repair than last year, but still manages to hold itself with dignity. The four walls were almost large enough for a regular family, which meant far too small for the Matron Mymble’s dozens of little ones, and certainly too small to hold a full extended family of mymbles: each grown up child now back home, the fathers of every other mymble hanging awkwardly beside each other, and the Matron Mymble herself, who was as loud as she was large. Loud. That was the problem, wasn’t it? Noise, voices yelling over each other, the slamming of doors, the breaking of plates, louder and louder till Snufkin’s head ached and his skin crawled.

“Mymble! Darling, my little darling look at you!” The Matron Mymble cries when she opens the door, and Mymble greets her with a smile and a kiss on both cheeks.

“Is father here, Mama?” The Matron Mymble nods, scooping up Little My and squishing her tight.

“Back somewhere hiding someone, no doubt.” She says. The Dartan is a furry, wide-eyed man who speaks little and blinks far too much. Little My had inherited his sharp claws and sharper teeth, but Snufkin sees little similarities between the timid creature and his half-sisters beyond that. The Matron Mymble turns towards Snufkin. He forces the most natural smile he can and tries to seem pleasant when she hugs him tight. She smells like lavender and lilacs under all those furs.

He could never say he hated his mother, or even disliked her, just found her strange in a way he couldn’t place.

He had loved the ease of being alone ever since he was a child; the missing weight of commitment on his shoulders, the simple pleasantness of silence, the surprising calm that loneliness brought. But sometimes, back when he was young, he had found himself open to the idea of being alone with someone. Two people sharing that silence together. A mother or a father to be lonely with, to teach him the right names of the constellations he saw when he looked up at night or the fungi he passed when he crawled through the mud.

There was never someone there though, and he learned to leave the deep longing for shared emptiness behind. He’d name his own stars, rename red caps to whatever he wanted. You had that power when you were alone. It was strange, having family now. Strange and vaguely uncomfortable.

“Your father’s somewhere inside, dear, do make sure he doesn’t eat anything he shouldn’t while the children are around.”

“Of course, Mother.”

The Matron Mymble cups his cheek and tilts his face up towards her. She’s still lovely for her age; the crow’s feet and smile lines suit her.

“You should visit more. The little ones always miss you.” She pats his cheek, plucks his hat off his head—“no hats inside, dear”—and ruffles his hair before pushing him inside after his half-sisters.

Crossing into the doorway is crossing into a world of chaos.

It’s expected chaos; the squeals of tiny mymbles and mumriks blended with the occasional shattering knickknack and the sound of parents yelling over one another. But it didn’t matter how well Snufkin knew what he’d be walking into, the sounds still left his head buzzing.

He’d always been too sensitive for such things; sounds, smells, and touch. Perhaps he learned it after spending so many years alone, or perhaps he was born with it, proof that he was meant to live in a separate sphere than those around him. Regardless, it was always more obvious in the Mymble House.

The Mymble’s daughter disappears from his side, likely to go find the Dartan. Little My inches back away from the commotion in the living room towards the kitchen.

“Don’t you dare leave me alone in here.” Snufkin hisses, having to bend down to her ear to be heard over the children.

“I’m finding a tea pot— find your own, I’m not sharing.” She hisses back and slips out of his arms as easily as a fresh caught fish, disappearing into the crowd of ginger monsters. That wasn’t fair to them, Snufkin reminds himself. A child can’t help being a child, no matter how loud or terrible they might be.

Snufkin carefully pushes his way through the crowd, stepping over tiny half mymbles and the other strange half creatures that the Matron Mymble called her own. Snufkin supposes he counts as one of those; at first glace one wouldn’t think of him as any part mymble at all.

“You’re sure you’re not part racoon instead?” Little My would say to him, little hands on her little hips, chin jutting forward, voice shrill. “You look the part.”

“Careful, I’ll go bite you and give you a nasty bout of rabies.”

“Not if I bite you first!”

She’d go for his tail and he’d take off running, the two of them giving chase until Snufkin’s undershirt left him gasping and out of breath or Sniff and Moomin came along. Chase would become tag and tag would become hide and seek and then the sun would be going down, the lot of them laying in the grass and watching the sunset together.

Family didn’t seem so strange then. It felt like everything he had ever wanted.

A child lets out a scream as a red and silver blur comes thundering down the stairs into the living room—two children clinging to a silver serving platter sliding down the stairs. They crash into the wood floor, rolling off their sled and onto the wood flooring. Snufkin pushes past the growing circle of mymbles crowding around them; one sled rider pops straight up with a whoop and grabs hold of his partner. She groans and rolls over, pressing her wrist against her chest, letting out a sniffle when her brother yanks her up into a sitting position.

“Let’s go!” He squeals “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” 

“No,” Snufkin says “Let’s not. Come on, let me through, let’s see it.”

“Is it broken?” One mymble asks.

“Is her arm gonna fall off?”

“I saw a squirrel’s foot fall off once!”

“Do we need to cut it off? Can I do it? Can I keep it?” The little mymble whines at that, eyes going wide and panicked, and she squeezes her arm even tighter.

“No one’s arm is going to fall off. Give her some space.” Snufkin says, and throws a glare over his shoulder at the overly enthusiastic want-to-be dismemberer. It takes a moment to recognize her, but he knows those thin eyebrows and turned up nose. Little Might has gotten surprisingly taller, but it seems her attitude is still the same.

Snufkin hoists the injured mymble up in his arms.

“Have you got a name there with all that hair?” He asks. She rests her head on his chest and sniffles again. ‘Please don’t start crying,’ Snufkin begs in his head. He couldn’t handle a crying little one. ‘Please, please don’t start crying.’

“Bill.”

“Let’s get a look at you then, Bill. Does that sound all right to you?”

Bill nods, eyes red, and Snufkin is careful not to jostle her as he carries her to the bathroom. The other children part easily for him, and he sets her down on the lip of the battered clawfoot bathtub and searches for the Matron Mymble’s first aid supplies in the medicine cabinet.

“She moved them to behind the towels because Mymble Jr. kept trying to drink the rubbing alcohol.” Little Might says from the doorway. Snufkin closes the cabinet. The mirror on the other side is distorted, the silver backing scratched, and the warped reflection it gives is surprisingly unsettling.

“Thank you, Little Might. Now go play somewhere.”

“Wanna watch. I’ll be quiet.” Snufkin looks at her standing in the doorway, feet planted and steady. Snufkin might not be around often, but he knew that stance well enough. Bill sniffles again, this time hitched and dangerously close to crying. Fighting Might wasn’t worth dealing with a crying child.

“Fine. But we’re being quiet.” Little Might nods and sits on the floor in front of the tub as Snufkin carefully rolls up Bill’s sleeve. The wrist is red, bruises already starting to darken, and rugburn, bad enough to draw blood, runs up her arm. No swollen skin, no crooked fingers, just some blood and bruises. Thank goodness.

Little Might grows bored of watching him dab away blood with rubbing alcohol quickly and takes to staring off instead.

“You shouldn’t be using that, you know.” She says. “He drank too much of it and then he got sick and his eyes fell out. It makes you blind.”

Bill bites her lip at that and swings her feet over, looking away from where Might’s big green eyes were fixed on.

“And who’d that be?” Snufkin says. Little Might got like this sometimes, spouting cryptic lines about this, that, and the other. Snufkin wasn’t sure if she did it as a gag or if she really meant the things she said, but it spooked the other children regardless.

“The man that lived here before us. He got sick and left and it made the house sad. It’s still sad.”

“Then we’ll just have to be very pleasant to each other and make sure it stays happy. Isn’t that right, Bill?”

Bill nods slowly, and Little Might huffs. Snufkin tucks the end of the gauze bandage around Bill’s arm into itself and rolls down her sleeve.

“All good to go! Now you be careful, I don’t want to have to bring you back here.” He holds out a hand and Bill puts her tiny hand in it for a careful handshake.

“Deal!” She says and bolts out of the room as if she hadn’t been on the verge of tears just minutes before.

“You really shouldn’t have used it.” Little Might mumbles, and Snufkin just ruffles her hair, pulling a few wisps of hair from her bun.

“Have you seen your daddy?” She asks, and Snufkin shakes his head. “I haven’t seen mine. He never comes; it’s not fair.”

Snufkin keeps his hand on her tiny head. “Wanna know a secret? Parents are stupid. You don’t need them to be who you are. Go have fun without him, squirt.”

Little Might scrunches up her nose at the nickname but leaves with her head held high all the same. She’d grown so much since last year. Soon she wouldn’t be a little Little Might anymore. The thought left him feeling something close to sad. Snufkin squashes the feeling down.

 The children have found some other game involving a broken chair and piggy back rides by time he finishes cleaning up the bathroom—Mymble might call him feral but he’s still got some manners, thank you very much—and Snufkin sneaks past them to the wide, crooked back door into the Mymble House’s garden.

Of all the things in the Mymble House, all the crumbling, peeling, creaking things, the garden was the most impressive and well kept. If Moominmamma ever comes to visit Snufkin knows she will be ecstatic to see the rows of irises and lavender, tomatoes and squash. Lemon and lime trees grow in stone pots while a great live oak stretches up high in the center. Snufkin knows when his father visits he takes up residence on the thick lower limbs of the oak trees, and his frequent presence there is marked by the deep scratches on the trunk from his claws. Where did he sleep when it rained? Surely he didn’t only exist in treetops.

It takes a moment to recognize the man sitting under the oak tree, two armfuls of children sitting and squirming in front of him. Linut’s not here often, less than Snufkin ever is, and it’s always an awkward time with him.

“Do a cricket!” One kid calls out “Make a cricket noise!” Linut lets out a short staccato whistle and giggles, gasps, and cheers rippled through the crowd.

“Bird!” One kid says, and the others echo, throwing out different kinds of feathered friends. Linut clears his throat.

“A wood pigeon!” He says, raising his hands to his mouth, and sends out some random notes that might sound like a bird to an untrained ear but was utter nonsense to Snufkin.

“Your hearing must be off, friend, you’re missing a few notes!”

Snufkin knows the voice but he still jumps when the Joxter rests his arm on his shoulder. His voice is deep and scratchy—he’s been smoking, even though the Matron Mymble frowns upon the smell of tobacco in the house.

“Does that sound like a wood pigeon to you?” the Joxter asks Snufkin, and a dozen pairs of tiny eyes turn to Snufkin. Damn.

“Awfully high, far too slow?” Snufkin says. The Joxter hmms, moves off of him, and brings his hands up to his mouth. The whistle is low and slow, simple murmuring coos that hover sweetly in the air.

“There. Wood pigeon.”

Linut’s face falls and a scowl takes its place; that’s the Linut Snufkin remembers, a rude, biting, clawed thing that was quick to hiss and spit. Snufkin knew his mother had varied tastes, but he could never imagine ever holding such a spikey thing close.

“Why don’t you go find a rat to eat.” Linut says, and the Joxter laughs.

“Come on, try another, let’s see if you get it right this time.”

Linut stands and Snufkin is just wondering if he should pull his father back inside when a wet drop drips on his cheek, then his shoulder, and then the rain is coming down hard and steady. The children scream, half running to the door, half delighted by the rain. The Joxter and Linut push through the children without a thought. Snufkin sighs.

“Get inside.” He says, corralling the little ones towards the door. Apparently, these adults couldn’t be bothered to send them in themselves. One boy shakes his head and Snufkin hoists him up, squirming, muddy limbs and all.

Apparently, a light rain shower is all it takes to drive a room of children wild, and when Snufkin dumps the squealing little thing on the floor the sounds inside hit him like a brick wall. Shrill, tinny voices bounce off the walls, and Snufkin half considers turning back into the storm. He stops considering, makes the decision, and is pushing open the door when the Mymble’s daughter grabs his shoulders and yanks him back.

“We’re seating dinner.”

“Dinner is loud.”

“You can handle an hour. Just a little noise.” Snufkin wrinkles his nose. There was no such thing as a small noise.

The dining room is the most scuffled room of the house, always has been, ripped apart and put together and ripped apart again by tiny grubby hands, and now every table and desk in the house have been pushed into one long table, taking up as much space as the Matron Mymble can manage.

The assorted furniture still isn’t enough to fit the generations of mymbles squeezed into the Mymble House, and only the lucky few can have a chair or plate to themselves. Little My bares her teeth at any little thing that dares to step too close to her chair and happily bites off whatever she likes from the sorry saps who left their plates unattended around her. Snufkin doesn’t have the heart to shove Bill off when the little mymble comes and hoists herself into his lap. The pressure is almost grounding, helping the discomfort prickling under his skin at the noise bouncing off the walls. There is a reason he doesn’t care to share meals; too many sounds, too many smells, all hovering around him till his head grew heavy and dull.

His father lounges back in his chair two seats down from his mother, children hanging from each arm and happily mushing the food on his plate with their little paws, and doesn’t bother a glance his way when Snufkin tries to meet his eyes. So Snufkin has used up his father’s attention for the day; faster than usual but not unexpected. The Joxter is fickle and easily distracted. Snufkin has always thought privately that he was just too lazy to hold tight to thoughts.

Next to his mother a pretty, fat, dark skinned women snuggles close to her, burring her giggling face in the Matron Mymble’s fur collar. The Matron Mymble smiles wide and pats her cheek, whispering something sweet in her ear before turning back to a little one pulling at her coat sleeve.

“So you’re moved on awfully fast this time, dear—fearing an empty nest?” the Linut says.

“Dad!” A blonde mumrik hisses, and the Linut shakes off their hand.

“We’re all simply surprised you’re still invited after last year.” An older mymble from across the table says—the room is a mixture of giggles as the Linut’s child covers their face and slouches down in their chair. The Linut leans forward, all bristles and spikes.

“You have something to say to me?”

“Oh, do I!”

“Not this year, _please_.” the Mymble’s daughter groans, “Can’t we just eat some potatoes?” A small chorus of little ones call out for more potatoes and one mymble hoists herself up onto the dining table—Mymble is up in an instant, snatching at the bow on her tail, the weight of the two of them tilting one table too far. Plates slide, some smashing over the edge into pieces of porcelain and potatoes. Perhaps using the nice china hadn’t been the wisest idea. A child screams at their now missing plate and the boy next to them looks at his own plate, caught just in time by his mother. He yanks it from her clawed hands and throws it to the ground. Food and chine splatter all over his shined shoes.

“Spinach—!” his mother starts but is cut off by the boy next to them.

“That’s not what we do with our dinner!” He cries, and with the same flourish as Matron Mymble he upturns his glass of lemonade on Spinach’s head.

There’s a beat of silence as the room turns to the two children until Little My grabs hold of her own glass and throws it at Mymble, whose knee is still half up on the table, the little mymble’s tail still firmly in her hand.

“My!” she spits, and in an instant every child seems to remember the most important house rule—if Little My can do it, so could they. Bill’s plate flips onto her lap, kicked off the table by a scrambling child, and bursts into tears as gravy soaks into her dress. The pressure of her on Snufkin’s lap is no longer grounding, just suffocating as the noise in the room builds, bouncing around. The shouts of desperate parents and older siblings blends into a painful buzz, like bees in his head and chest, and if Snufkin doesn’t get away from all, all _this_ he’s sure he’ll explode.

He shoves his chair back, plopping Bill on the floor, and pushes past the row of chairs. Outside the sun hasn’t bothered to poke itself out of the clouds. Maybe it’s hiding too.

Rain has left the ground soggy and the air muggy, light misty drizzles still falling from the sky, and Snufkin doesn’t care that the wet grass with stain his pants. It’s all the better that way. With his back firmly to the door he unties his boots and pulls off his socks—the soft, squishy ground is a pleasant distraction from the buzzing hive in his head. This was what the world is supposed to be like: quiet and muddy.

Sometimes, when the hive in his head got too loud, the touches and lights and smells too much, his tongue grew too heavy and exhausted for words and he couldn’t speak a word. Moomin would sit beside him in silence, understanding that touching was too much at the time as they watched minnows swimming in the river’s shallows, or Moominmamma would spread butter and jam on soft white bread and let him sit alone on the veranda, counting the clouds until his head cleared. It isn’t so awful, not when he has lovely blue above him and good friends beside him.

He isn’t there tonight, not yet, and just focuses on the grass. Footsteps, muffled by the wet ground, come up behind him, close enough for their knees to brush his back. Maybe if he ignores them long enough they’ll go away—Snufkin considers himself quite good at ignoring people.

There’s the strike of a match, the flame hissing in the mist, and the smell of tobacco. Snufkin rarely smokes tobacco—he found the smell disagreed with him—preferring clove, and on the occasional special occasion, catnip. His father sits with his back just inches from Snufkin, close enough to be noticed, far enough to respect boundaries.

The pipe pops in the wet air—Snufkin doubts it will stay lit long,

“You didn’t say hello earlier.” Snufkin says. The Joxter takes a long drag.

“It was raining; I make a point to stay as dry as possible.”

“It’s wet now.”

“Yes, well…” He doesn’t finish the thought, turning instead to offer his pipe to Snufkin. The taste of tobacco is heavy on Snufkin’s tongue and the smoke disappears quickly in the damp air.

“You seemed to be trying to enjoy yourself less this year.” The Joxter says. “Good. Honesty looks good on you.”

The pipe is passed back; the Joxter’s voice is deep and raspy with smoke.

“You seemed to be having a fun time with the little ones.” Snufkin says. The Joxter’s shirt and pants are dotted with small holes left behind from tiny claws.

“Of course. I’m wonderful with children.”

“Dishonestly looks bad on you.”

“They’re loud and mean and bite.”

“Little My’s not a child and she bites worse than any of them.” The Joxter laughs.

“My is a creature all her own.”

Snufkin takes another drag, letting the smoke fill up every buzzing piece of him. Smoke sooths bees, puts them to sleep, and the feeling of mud on his bare feet helps ground him. Eventually he hears the Joxter slide down onto the ground and sigh. Snufkin looks over his shoulder at his father, one arm under his head, the other thrown over his eyes, pipe, finally put out by the slow drizzle, lying forgotten by his side. Snufkin rips up a handful of grass and sprinkles it on the Joxter’s face. He splutters, spitting out grass, and sits up.

“Betrayed by my own flesh and blood.” He says, but there’s no malice in the words. Snufkin laughs, the first proper laugh all day, and lies down beside him. Mud squishes his hair—Mymble will kill him for it. He smiles and bats the Joxter’s hand away when he tries to dump his own fistful of muddy grass on Snufkin.

The Joxter stays propped up over Snufkin even after his muddy attempts fail, his heavy lidded eyes soft as they lingered on Snufkin’s face. He hmms and lies by down.

When the Mymble’s daughter comes to fetch them an hour later they’re still side by side, muddy and close to touching, soothed to sleep by a hidden sun and warm misty rain.

**Author's Note:**

> don't smoke kids


End file.
